Pomegranate was a slow read. It had too many details and wasn't moving fast enough for me. I rarely don't finish a book, but I got about half way through and just couldn't continue. I won't do a public review of the book, because it wouldn't be fair since I didn't finish it.

I loved this book so much. Let me just say that first. It’s told in flashbacks where you alternate between Ranita’s present life where’s getting out of prison and figuring out where she’s going to live and how to get custody of her kids back. And then you also see her as a child, as a teen, as someone in the midst of their addiction, etc. You get to see her relationship with her parents, the romantic relationships that have hurt and healed her, the relationship with her kids who are wary of trusting her again. There’s such emotion and ups and downs in this book that really touched my heart. They say that people only remember you for your last mistake, but can people truly forgive and give you a second chance? And I think this book answers that question really well about how to atone for your sins and mistakes, especially when it comes to your children. I like seeing Ranita work through her past, her trauma, her addiction, her questions about her sexuality, it felt so raw and real and like I was reading a memoir of a real person.

I have to share a quote that really encapsulates this book: “Nobody just chooses once, and then the work is done. All day, every day, we’ve got to keep on choosing, over and over again, who we’re going to be.”

Please read this book. I gave it 5 big shiny sparkly stars.

Pomegranate is a gorgeous and moving novel about those that society ignores. This novel shows the true nature of people living through their mistakes with compassion and honesty. Ranita’s journey out of prison, unpacking her trauma, and her daily struggle of figuring out her life. Helen Elaine Lee is an incredible author who gives her characters vulnerability and shows the many ways grief manifests to different people. This novel is stunning. I absolutely recommend it!!

“Here I am, alive and awake. Still going forward and backward. And brave enough to tell about it.”

Pomegranate is a captivating story of Ranita, a queer Black woman trying to adjust to her new life after a 4 year prison sentence for opioid possession. It follows her new life as she struggles to win back her two children while maintaining her sobriety, as well as dealing with past temptations around every corner. The failings of the prison system are a huge highlight of this story, + how difficult our country makes it for those released to get back on their feet. There were also flashbacks of Ranita’s childhood, showing how both trauma and family support affected her growth. There are so many important themes in this book, including redemption, addiction, trauma, abuse, but most of all love. Of family, of partners, and of yourself. This should be on everyone’s must-read list!

Thank you NetGalley and Atria books for this arc.

To begin with, thank you to the publishers and to NetGalley for an eArc in exchange for a fair and honest review.

This book was good, but I don't think it was for me. I often didn't like the temporal shifts in the narration, and I loved loved loved Ranita's present day journey. I wanted to stay with her in the present! I wanted musings and flashbacks and memories but not entirely separate chapters--that's a me issue though and not with the book itself. "Pomegranate" was also very character-driven which I really loved; on the other hand, sometimes I found my attention veering--again, that's a me thing though and mostly because of the shifts juuuusssst when I was starting to enjoy the chapter. Overall, it was a great, well-written, and character-centric book, and I'll probably reread it again!

4/5

I was captivated by Ranita’s story and cheered her on. Well written.
Many thanks to Atria and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

Pomegranate was a beautifully told story about Ranita and her life. I liked the insight into her childhood and teen/20s and how she got to where she is today. I loved the work she took to be a mother to her children and the trauma to overcome.

Thank you to the author Helen Elaine Lee, publishers Atria Books and Simon & Schuster, and as always NetGalley, for an advance digital copy of POMEGRANATE.

Ranita finally makes it through her prison sentence, and keeps working her program. She gets released and returns home to family that loves her no matter what. But she misses her kids. She wants to make it up to them, once parole gives her access. She wants a job. Wants a *drink*. But she doesn't take the drink.... and takes the first job she's offered. She's going somewhere, but the past wants to take her there, and for now it's the only vehicle she knows.

I really love Ranita. As the protagonist of this story about prison, addiction, and recovery, I connect deeply with her. Not because I've shared all these experiences, but because I connect with them, the way Lee writes about them. This alone would have carried me through this one, especially with the beautiful writing, but the story is also ultimately sweet, as suggested, perhaps, by the title and cover. One particular theme was very interesting to me, that of the roleof trauma at the root of addiction and disordered psyche.

Please consider this my trigger warning for violence against children and women, child SA, SA, prison, intoxication.

I think "Pomegranate" is the perfect title and metaphorical descriptor for this unlikely and inspiring hero.

Rating:🍒🍒🍒🍒🍒 / 5 Black Cherries
Recommend? Yes, but trigger warnings
Finished: May 5 20 2023
Format: Digital
Read this if you like:
🌄 Redemption stories
🏥 Stories about recovery
👧🏽 Diverse voices and stories
👤 Mental health rep

Thanks NetGalley for a copy of this book.

The story starts with Ranita Atwater being released from prison and follows her as she fights to stay sober, fights to get her kids back, fights to find herself and fights to forgive herself. The chapters rotate between telling Ranita's life as a child with a controlling mother and an understanding father, her late teen/20s where she is struggling to fit in and ends up making poor choices with men and life in general and as she is released from being in prison for four years. Once out of prison she tries to become the mother and woman she knows she can be and confronts her past choices with understanding and giving herself some grace. This author has a great voice. Several times my heart just dropped as I will reading this novel. I highly recommend this book and cannot wait to read more from this author.

A beautiful portrait of one woman's life. There is such a strong. moving voice, and I loved the well-crafted relationship dynamics.

"Pomegranate" finds the balance between precise rhythm and freefall that was not just a joy to read, heartwarming and defiant, but also encouraging and embracing, too. The story focuses really only on one character, and while there are numberless secondary characters crossing in and out of her orbit she is the heart of the story, and so the fact that she feels perfectly flawed and real and like someone I could know, someone I would want to know, really grounded this piece. In addition, most all of the secondary characters felt realized and storied. They may only have crossed into our protagonist’s story to demonstrate one thing or another, but they didn’t feel flimsy or like placeholders, even when our time spent with them was short. The writing itself was really wonderful. It felt like tumbling, like poetry that had lost its way and became prose. The technique of not just alternating the present time with the past but switching from first-person narration to third-person narration while doing so was employed really well. It could have felt hacky or a little too-on-the-nose, but instead it really did a good job of showing how the past lives in our present, informing it, and haunting it. Lastly the story itself was strong. This isn’t a just story about reform, or finding oneself, or inner strength and resilience, though it does encompass all of those things. This is a story about reconciliation, not with the outer world but with the inner world, and finding transformation in that forgiveness. It’s a love story, a story of nurture and kindness and the growth that can only come from that environment, but all of that is enclosed in the interiority of a person struggling to make every day meaningful.

I enjoyed the actual reading of this story, it was paced well and made me want to keep reading. It doesn’t get a perfect score because it felt somewhat predictable. If you read the description you can make a list guessing what kind of traumas she experienced in her past, what some of her experiences in prison were like, and what specific difficulties would arise out of prison, and if you just stuck to the normal conventions in this flavor of story you would have nailed almost all of the beats of this story. So, there weren’t any surprises, narratively speaking. But the masterful writing and the intimacy of the prose didn't leave me feeling like these were mere tropes, checkboxes on a list, and so the somewhat expectedness of the developments and experiences didn’t really detract from the story for me. I would have liked for it to have pushed me a little more, had a few more surprises, and that keeps it shy of a perfect five stars. However, having said that I highly recommend it, it is a quick read, comfortable and uplifting, even and especially when navigating what life looks like after years of unaddressed trauma and grief.

I want to thank the author, the publisher, Atria Books, and NetGalley, who provided a complimentary eARC for review. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I had high hopes for this and I think it can definitely be the right book for some readers, but it wasn't for me. It was very character driven and a touch too slow for me to ever really sink into it. I do appreciate the content and love that the author gave a spotlight to a sector of the population who is so often overlooked.

I really liked how we got an all-around picture of Ranita’s life. The past showed Ranita both before and during prison and the present show after getting out. I really enjoyed the therapy sessions and how Ranita reconciled with her past as well as accepting who she was. She was so determined to do what was needed to get her children back and I was hoping for the best. The struggles she went through felt like a realist representation of someone battling with mental health and alcohol/drugs. I loved how the pomegranate and what it represented to Ranita came up multiple times in the story, it sort of connected the themes together the way Ranita talked about it.

Thank you @atriabooks @helenelainelee @tlcbooktours and @tlcdiversity for the gifted copy.

A beautifully-wrought story of a mother working to gain back the trust of her children and family post addiction, Pomegranate is also an examination of the U.S. prison system and its ability to dehumanize.

Pomegranate started slow for me but once I got into it, I couldn’t stop. Lee’s examination of addiction was so real. For fear of spoilers, I wouldn’t have wanted to see it handled ANY OTHER WAY. The exploration of the mother-daughter story was also wonderfully done. The glimpses into generational trauma and how they can lead to certain outcomes was incredibly painted and thought out.

Lee’s writing style, while clipped and often very quick-paced took me off guard in the beginning, it quickly became evident she was truly writing as her character. I began to see Ranita jumping off the page with each quick brush. The natural imagery she used, often referencing trees and the world of plants was especially touching given Ranita’s “re-birth” if you will. Trees are strong and stand tall for the environments around them, but they lose their leaves and each year get another chance - this felt so in line with Ranita’s story.

I’m a huge fan.

This book was a bit slow-moving at first and hard to get into, but once I got into it, I was hooked. It felt like a bunch of small vignettes from someone’s diary with how intimate and personal every detail felt. Almost every single sentence packed a punch, making it almost overwhelming at times.

Lots of trigger warnings to be aware of, so I encourage people to look into those before beginning this book!

This book is such a beautiful exploration of family, addiction, parenthood, and what it means to be a human trying their best.

I was pulling for Ranita the whole way, and her brief moments of struggle just the story feel even more realistic. My favorite aspect of the book was her relationship with her kids. It's rare to see such a nuanced and gradual building of a relationship in fiction, but it was so true to life.

Ranita is lucky because she has a strong community who are committed to helping her get a job, a place to live, and giving her the opportunity to succeed. I recently read Didn't Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta, about a transwoman coming home from prison, and Carlotta was the complete opposite of Ranita- no community support, even from her own family. In Pomegranate, we see how important community and mutual aid are to the success of someone who is trying to make different choices in life. I really appreciated that narrative.

Overall, this is a beautiful look at what it means to try again, and how knowing you are loved makes all the difference in the world.

To say Pomegranate is a slow read is not an insult. It is a work to savor, rich in both descriptions and in getting to the core of a woman blooming into her own after a life of being taken advantage of and punished for it.

We meet Ranita leaving prison after four years in the present tense, first person, taking us through her life and the way she notices the small and beautiful things about the world. We meet Ranita in the past tense, third person, looking back on her life and the men and mother who shaped her into someone who was testing time until she did almost invariably end up in that prison, the circumstances of her life pushing her in that direction. And then, finally out into the world-after, the choices she personally made to take back her life, to become Ranita again, to put forth into the people who deserved it the vast fonts of love she has to give, a magnetic opposite from all the love taken from her. We walk with Ranita as she owns her Blackness, comes into her queerness, and slowly opens up into being able to be Herself.

Please check the content warnings here if you need them, but though painful, the content warning-worthy parts of Ranita's life are told to us with care and empathy. Helen Elaine Lee put in the work to speak to and work with folks who have been in Ranita's very similar life experiences. As a reader I appreciated the Acknowledgements and credit to the men and women in correctional facilities and recovery homes and their creative writing programs.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for approving my ARC request.

The writing was beautiful as we get a glimpse of Ranita’s past (told in third person) and her present (told in first person). Ranita is freshly released from her time in prison as she tries to adjust to the outside world that kept moving while she was stuck behind bars. Lee walks you through the ups and the downs of what it takes for her to get her 2 kids back into her custody and live a life turned out for good. Her experiences from childhood will spark such sadness and anger in you as no child deserves to go through those types of situations! My heart broke for her as she battled past demons and turn things around for a better life outside prison. As a mom, I just can’t even imagine being separated from my kids so I definitely was rooting for her the entire time and holding onto hope that growth would rise within her!

4.5/5. Pomegranate is so many things under its surface, just like the central metaphor of the text. It's a coming-of-age story, a romance, a call to action, an unflinching look at the cold cruelty of the U.S. prison system, and a journey to redemption and recovery. Its protagonist, Ranita, is truly compelling, as are the complicated dynamics she has with nearly every other significant character. As heartbreaking as I found Pomegranate, there are spots of genuine hope, light, and humor, and its central message is one of change and healing.
I found the start of the novel slightly off-putting, and I'm surprised I ended up loving the rest as much as I did. In the first chapter, names of several characters and their relationships to Ranita are introduced without actually meeting them, in a tell-not-show fashion. It took me a few chapters to actually figure out who everybody was. I also wasn't a huge fan of the first-person chapters and the dual structure of the past/present narrative initially, with the first-person sections seeming scattered and a little overly impressionistic at first. The chapter structure had totally grown on me by the end, and I think in the last third or so of the novel, as Ranita is directly confronting her past, it worked even better than a linear narrative would have.
Once we got into the details of Ranita's relationship with Maxine--after quite a bit of Ranita telling the reader about Maxine's importance without us actually "meeting" her in any meaningful way--it's beautiful to watch it unfold. They so clearly are suited for each other in a way that acts as a foil to Ranita's previous relationships, where they have a dimension of tenderness and intimacy together that Ranita experiences for the first time, yet where Maxine genuinely challenges her and helps her grow. The most meaningful, nuanced dynamic in Ranita's narrative, though, is that with her daughter. Amara's response to her mother being back in her life, and her clear conflict in navigating that along with the inherent chaos of her teenage years, felt genuine and complicated and real.
Ultimately, Pomegranate succeeded for me with its ending in two key ways: it felt finished but not overly romanticized or idealized, and it made me cry (emotional catharsis!). Slight dislike for the very beginning aside, I found this incredibly powerful and I hope it gets the attention it deserves.

This is one of the books you should read when people say that you need to read more books to become a better writer. The way that Lee captures the pain and turmoil that Ranita goes through is very poetic.

As much as this is about Ranita's journey of healing and self-discovery, it is also a commentary on how the system is build to keep marginalized communities in the margins - targeting Black boys to enlist i the Army, the gentrification of Black neighborhoods, etc. On the outside, they appear like non-issues but there are people who are affected by them.

I also enjoyed about such well-rounded Black female characters. Even the side characters felt like whole people.

Overall, I enjoyed Lee's poetic writing. This is the first time I read one of her novels and I'm looking forward to reading her other work..

The reason why this wasn't a 5 star read for me was because I found the pacing of the novel to be a bit slow.